Anyway, none of the kids suffered ill-effects, but at least one became belligerent and talked loudly, which is kinda funny. And since consumer-stuff is sorta their thing, Consumerist managed to find out why this happened three times in the period of a few weeks that we know about. It turns out, it’s not at all an uncommon occurrence, and here’s why:

Several people who work in these types of restaurants say that servers often help themselves to “happy juice” – make alcoholic drinks and put them in sippy cups so they can drink on the job.”

“I’ve worked for a few years in restaurant­s and both: servers and bartenders using sippy cups to hide their own booze is a routine mode of operation. The type of work most of these people do is both long (10-12 hours per day) and rather stressful. Many combat this by abusing alcohol, some start drinking as early as noon on a weekday.”

Sound plausible? Have you seen servers supping sangria from Handy Manny cups behind the scenes? If you were serving Poppin’ Jalapeno Zingers to the post-Walmart crowd, would you be getting hammered on the clock, too?